


These Winds and Tides

by moony



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, Panic Attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-14
Updated: 2012-09-14
Packaged: 2017-11-14 05:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/511579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moony/pseuds/moony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles has a panic attack. Derek interferes.</p><p>Title from 'Drowning Man,' by U2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Winds and Tides

Stiles is in a grocery store, standing in front of a huge display of kale and wondering how to coerce his dad into eating it. The last time Stiles had introduced him to a new vegetable - the eggplant - his dad had been less than thrilled. There was a lot of glaring, whining and, eventually, the most begrudging dinner Stiles had ever experienced. The eggplant parmesan had been pretty good, but  not good enough to keep Stiles’s dad from exacting revenge. Later that night, Stiles’s dad had hunted him down, cornered him in his room, and gave him the Sex Talk.

****

It’d been just as horrifying as it’d been the first time he’d gotten it, when he was twelve. From his mom.

****

But, thinks Stiles, his dad needs more dark-and-leafys in his life, so Stiles puts the kale in the cart, next to the granola bars and the 12-pack of soda he planned to hide in his car. Stiles isn’t sure what punishment his dad can come up with that’s worse than demonstrating a condom on a plastic lightsaber, but it’s a small price to pay for healthy cholesterol results at the next physical. He moves down the aisle, looking for the broccoli.

****

In the next moment, Stiles finds himself unable to breathe.

****

More accurately, Stiles can breathe - he's definitely breathing, in and out, in and out - but it's not enough breath. The air isn't filling his lungs; they feel tight and empty. It's as though as fast as he takes it in the air’s sucked right back out again. Stiles can hear himself start to wheeze, softly.

  
Stiles has never had asthma, but he’s read online that it can develop later in life, so it’s not a totally crazy theory that he’s having an attack. He’s seen enough of Scott’s to know what they look like. Stiles reaches back with one hand and digs around in his backpack until his fingers catch what he’s looking for: Scott’s inhaler. Stiles has always carried an extra one, ever since the third grade when Scott had lost his during recess and then went into an asthma attack so violent that it put him in the hospital. Stiles never, ever wanted to see his best friend like that again - face pale, lips blue, eyes bulging as he gulped for air - so he’d begged Mrs. McCall for one of Scott’s extra inhalers. She hadn’t even hesitated. It’d scared her, too.

****

It’s never even occurred to Stiles to stop carrying it now that Scott no longer needs an inhaler. To Stiles, nothing is certain, so he still has one, he still picks up new ones from Mrs McCall when the old ones expire. Likewise, Scott always carries an Epi-Pen, just in case Stiles is ever stung by a bee and turns into the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Because it’s what best friends do.

****

Stiles jams the inhaler into his mouth. The medicine tastes metallic and makes his throat a little numb, and does absolutely nothing to help him breathe. Stiles pockets it, frowns and pokes at his own chest, listening to the thrum of his own heart. Vividly, he imagines it going suddenly silent, stuttering to a stop, if he can’t force himself to take a deep, satisfying breath. He tries to yawn; sometimes that helps. It doesn’t.

****

Please, he thinks, swallowing involuntarily. Creeping fingers of nausea curl around him and he gulps again. Not now. It’s been years since his last panic attack, there’s no reason for him to be having one in the middle of the produce aisle. There’s nothing traumatic about vegetables, for God’s sake.

****

Stiles glances around. At the end of the aisle, standing over the potatoes, is a woman holding a baby. These attacks of his scare the crap out of him, but they’re especially disturbing to anyone unfortunate enough to be nearby. The first time he had one at school the girl sitting next to him had cried so hard she’d thrown up. He’s had teachers think he’s stroking out or having a seizure, which led to an embarrassing incident in the fifth grade when 911 was called and the EMTs had arrived and looked at him like he was faking it. And then the stupid substitute had decided Stiles was faking it, and gave him detention.

****

Stiles had kind of hated fifth grade a lot.

****

But even worse than scaring people is the way that they just stare at you, like they’ve never panicked in a public place before (they probably haven’t, but still, it’s rude to stare, even if they’re freaking out and making dying whale noises). People look at you like you’re just some crazy dude in the park who flails around and yells at squirrels. Or worse, they look at you like they feel sorry for you.

****

To Stiles, nothing is worse than people looking at him with pity. He got enough of that at his mom’s funeral, thanks.

****

Oh my God.

****

He doesn't remember abandoning his basket on the floor, right in the middle of the aisle. He doesn't remember rushing through the store, or stumbling into the milky light of a warm, overcast day, but now he's outside and leaning against the wall, gulping humid air. He tries yawning again. This time it's enough and for a moment - a blissful, sweet moment - the air fills his lungs completely and everything's all right. He breathes out slow and he’s fine, everything is fine, nothing’s wrong.

****

Which is total bullshit, of course.

****

The relief doesn’t last long. He’d known it wouldn’t. Less than a minute after he exhales and once again his breaths are too short, too frantic and completely unsatisfying. His chest aches with the effort of all this trying to breathe, of holding in the scream that’s trying to work its way up and out of his throat. He can’t stop swallowing against the imagined need to vomit.

****

Home, he thinks frantically.

****

He’s got to get home. Once he's home he can crawl into the couch, put on the TV and let the sound and flashy colors distract him. He can go online, find Scott on AIM and get him to talk him down, tell him stupid shit that will make him think about anything else but his collapsing lungs, his exploding heart. Or, by some miracle, his dad will be home. That would be the best, because nothing chases away the panic like the familiar, safe presence of his dad.

Except he can’t move. He’s paralyzed with fear, with abject terror. Of nothing.

****

And that is the most annoying part of all of this: that he never knows what it is that sets him off. They almost never happen when he's scared, or worried, or sick. He’s never had a panic attack while facing down a alpha werewolf, or a bloodthirsty doom-lizard-slash-douchebag. He has definitely panicked, he’s certainly been scared out of his goddamn mind, but he’s never felt like this. He’s never been so frightened that his body completely shuts down.

****

Wait, scratch that - he has. When the kanima had paralyzed him that first time, the feeling was oddly similar to this. He hadn’t been able to move. He’d had to lie there, listening to the mechanic being murdered just a few feet away, unable to move, to help, to get away. And isn’t it just so fucking ridiculous that the best way he has to describe a panic attack is that it’s exactly like being frozen in place by a mythological creature while it kills someone in front of you?

****

Seriously, he thinks, with a hysterical little noise at the back of his throat, fuck my life, sometimes.

****

Except he can’t blame this on creepy supernatural reptiles. This is his own body betraying him, and for no reason at all. Really. There's nothing wrong, nothing at all, he wasn’t ‘triggered’ or anything, he was just buying some fucking groceries, and yet here he is, curling into himself against the wall of the store, sliding down into a crouch and ignoring funny looks from people going by.

****

Keep it together, he tells himself, eyes squeezed shut, hands gripping his knees. Think calming thoughts. Forests and oceans and unicorns and pictures from Mars and Lydia’s hair and Mom’s-

****

Another swell nausea crests over him, he swears his heart stutters, and that's when everything goes to hell.

****

Mom’s in the bathroom, he can hear her throwing up because of the chemotherapy, he’s heard his parents talking, it’s an experimental therapy, she’s late-stage, there’s nothing more they can do, he knows she’s going to die but she’s still doing this, she’s still letting them put poison into her body, to try and kill the poison that’s growing there, she wants to see Stiles graduate, she wants to see him get married, start a family, but she’s not going to, what if tonight’s the night she doesn’t wake up, what if tomorrow morning he goes to wake her and she’s not breathing. What if tonight’s the night Dad doesn’t come back from his shift. What if that phone ringing is the station telling him to come down and identify Dad’s body. What if Dad’s heart gives out while he’s chasing someone and they can’t get it started again. What if Scott loses control of himself and the last thing Stiles feels is his throat being torn open, what if his dad finds him like that, he doesn’t want his dad to have to bury his entire family, he can’t stand the idea of leaving his dad behind. What if what if what if what if...

****

With a gasp he sinks to the ground and covers his face with his hands. Gonna puke, he thinks. Definitely gonna barf. Oh God. He never has actually thrown up from this, but the churning in his belly is so real that every time, every damn time this happens, he's convinced that he will be. He licks his lips and swallows repeatedly, peers around his fingers to see if there's a garbage can nearby. There isn't.

****

There is, however, a pair of legs, in boots and black jeans, standing directly in front of him.

****

"Stiles."

****

Stiles looks up, blinks a couple of times, because he might be hallucinating. "Derek?"

****

Derek crouches down, voice low, eyes grey and bright. “I was in the bookstore.” He points, but Stiles doesn’t care. “I could hear your heart beating from the other side of the street,” he says. “It sounds like a machine gun.”

****

"I'm fine,” says Stiles, ducking his head again. He hears Derek snort.

****

"Oh yeah,” says Derek. “Obviously."

****

Stiles takes another useless breath, a ragged huff of air. He can hear traffic in the street, the footsteps of people walking around them. He knows they're being stared at, but he’s beyond caring now. He can’t breathe and Derek is here, and what the hell is going on in his life?

****

There’s a pressure on his arm. He looks up. Derek's got his hand on him, and it’s warm, huge, gripping his wrist tightly. Stiles glances at Derek’s face, but he can't quite read his expression. It's somewhere halfway between concern and curiosity, and it’s super confusing to Stiles who has never really known Derek to branch out from his usual brand of thinly-veiled malevolence into other emotions.

****

"What do you need?" asks Derek, in an impossibly kind voice, and now Stiles understands. He gets it. Of course Derek knows exactly what’s happening to him. It makes complete sense and Stiles feels like an idiot for not figuring it out sooner. Derek Hale would definitely have a lot of things to panic about.

****

"Dunno," says Stiles. His mouth feels full of wet, sticky wool. "Something to drink, maybe. That usually helps.”

****

And then Derek's up and gone before Stiles is finished speaking. With the absence of Derek's hand as a distraction the nausea returns with gusto and Stiles lurches over to the gutter, prepared to start heaving. Then he’s pulled back and arranged against the brick wall of the grocery store, and a bottle of something wet and cold is pressed into his hands.

****

"Drink," says Derek. "Slowly. I like these shoes."

****

Stiles looks at the bottle in his hand. It's a Coke. Stiles twists off the cap and takes a sip, then another, and then a small gulp. Cool, fizzy, sugary. Distracting. Water would have made him puke for sure, with no taste and nothing for his stomach to hold on to, but this is perfect. He takes another drink and sags against the wall, eyes falling closed, and his breathing's coming a bit easier. The nausea's still there but not as insistent.

****

Slowly, as he drinks, he feels more like himself again. On his way back to normal, or as close to normal as he ever gets, anyway.

****

There’s a sniff and a cough overhead, and Stiles opens his eyes and looks up. Derek's standing over him and Stiles realizes he's shielding him from the rest of the street, blocking him from prying eyes. It's like that for a few long moments, with Stiles slowly drinking his soda, Derek looking off into middle distance, not quite acknowledging Stiles but not ignoring him either. He's glad Derek's not talking about it, trying to soothe him or tell him platitudes like there's nothing to worry about or you just need to relax, or worse, it's all in your head.

****

God, Stiles hates it when people say that, because it always reminds him that they don’t really know what they’re talking about. They have never felt this degree of terror, sidling up to you from out of nowhere, shapeless and without reason. Like depression or grief, panic is a malicious thing made of shadows, and you can never see it coming. You only feel it once it has you. The fear is real, the panic sincere, even if you don't have a clue what's brought it here. It’s just here, and it has you, and for those few terrible moments you feel like you'll never get away.

****

It's worse than any terrifying, supernatural circumstance Stiles's ever been in.

****

After a few more minutes, with Derek standing a silent vigil, Stiles finishes his soda. The wasp-like buzzing in his brain has calmed down a little, and Derek's typical, stoic stillness seems to be the lodestar Stiles needs to focus on, to get himself out of his own head and back into the real world. It's not something Stiles has ever expected from Derek, but he's certainly grateful for it.

****

He stifles a burp and smiles up at him, weakly.

****

"Thanks," says Stiles.

****

Derek looks down at him and nods. "When you're ready," he says, "I need your help. I need to find out more about Cú Chulainn."

****

Stiles takes an experimental breath, inhaling long and hard through his nose. It fills his lungs, finally touching that deep place he couldn't reach before. "I knew it," he says on the exhale. "You’re only after one thing: my big, sexy brain."

****

"Yeah," says Derek, and Stiles can hear the eye-roll in his tone. "You got me. It gets me totally hot. I just want you to read the dictionary to me, all night. " He shoots Stiles an impatient look. “Can we go, now?”

****

Derek offers him a hand up and Stiles gladly takes it, finding himself firmly anchored in the now once more.

****

It’s a start.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I have generalized anxiety disorder. After my mother died, when I was a teenager, I started having serious panic attacks, often in public.
> 
> So yeah, me and Stiles are bros.
> 
> This is of course not what a panic attack feels like for everyone. I am describing my own experiences with them and how I cope. YMMV.


End file.
